Verse Around the Neck of Air

Pre-Columbian Parlor Trick

“so that it can be completely the / now” Jorie Graham

A white man stripped nude in February snow
A white man bisected and disemboweled
A white man lowered into a boiling fin de siècle kettle
A white man, a nail gun, a scoreboard
A white man, his radius and ulna strapped
to the rough cut stump of a boxelder maple, anterior artery up
A white man finds a white pill on a library shelf, 821.8
A white man handcuffed to an iron rod
A white man before the firing squad
A white man passed a biblical joint laced with wormwood
A white man remembers eucalyptus, three dusty foxes
A white man locked in a crate meant for his dog
A white man swung for sport and slammed into a brick wall